South Australian Attorney-General Backflips on Plan to Abolish MA15+

South Australian Attorney-General John Rau has scrapped plans to abolish the MA15+ rating for video games in South Australia following the introduction of an R18+ category, announcing he will now support both classifications.

“The new MA15+ classification is now so different to the previous one that I no longer see an issue with it,” Rau told InDaily. “I will, however, keep a watching brief on MA15+ games."

“The guidelines include much tighter requirements for every level of classifications – in particular, what constitutes MA15+.”

The final, approved guidelines for the new MA15+ rating actually contain only a single change to the revised draft guidelines released last November. November 2011's draft guidelines for the MA15+ category allowed sexual violence to be implied, if non-interactive and justified by context. The final guidelines for the MA15+ category, released last week, do not permit sexual violence (implied or otherwise) within the MA15+ classification.